Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu inaugurated a high speed train link from Istanbul to the Anatolian city of Konya that cuts journey time by nearly nine hours.
Erdoğan said travel on the new Konya-İstanbul line will be free next week.
The journey time on the high speed line is four hours 15 minutes compared to 13 hours on the old trains. Two departures are planned a day with tickets starting at 42.5 Turkish lira.
Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communication Minister Lütfi Elvan said that Turkey will launch next years tenders to build a new high speed line between İstanbul and Ankara to reduce the journey to just 1 hour 10 minutes.
He said that the new line will be completed by 2019.
